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Little C: the first month
“So I hear you’re looking for the baby pictures?”
Tag: Little E
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Obi and his babies
Don’t get between Obi and his babies. Don’t even try.
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The two seventh birthdays of Little E
Little E turned 7 on the 19th – wow! Despite numerous suggestions that he was going to get a baby brother for his birthday, I wanted him to have one last big birthday bash all to himself. And so did he – after attending two birthday parties in the same weekend, two weeks prior to his birthday, he suddenly announced that he wanted to have a birthday party too, one that all his friends could attend. Maybe at the park. Maybe the park with the ducks. Which, with two weeks to go, is quite the bold declaration. Attempts to look into reserving the park with the ducks yielded little information, and in any case the forecast for his birthday was looking like an outdoor party might be a bust. I started looking around for possible venues, but it was too close to the actual date; a second birthday party would have to be held a week after the 19th. … Read more
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Everybody’s geekin’ for the weekend, part three: Space (the final frontier)
Having gone to Arkadia Retrocade on Friday night in Fayetteville, followed by a Saturday morning visit to the Stafford Air & Space Museum in Weatherford, Oklahoma, we headed homeward, but with one more stop planned in Oklahoma City itself (40 minutes east of Weatherford) before returning to Fort Smith.
The second leg of the central Oklahoma space pilgrimage took us to Oklahoma City proper, in a part of town that we might not have visited otherwise but for the presence of a starship. In a rented space next to a roofing repair company in Oklahoma City is one of the only two 360-degree classic Star Trek bridge sets in the United States, replicating – if not improving on – the Enterprise set from the original ’60s series.
Starbase Studios was holding one of its rare open house events. They’re rare because the bridge is a working film set, and exposing it to the public puts it at increased risk of suffering accidental damage. Keeping the entire set fully lit (rather than the usual practice of only lighting those sections needed for a particular spot), and running fans to make the already-warm studio space tolerable for visitors, runs up a considerable electric bill, even for a single day.
We joked en route that the directions to the nondescript studio building sounded like a ransom note – in between lines of the directions I had printed out from the studio’s web site, I was riffing helpful additions like “place the money in an unmarked paper sack inside the newspaper vending machine on the corner; do not look around you, you are being watched.”
The verdict? Totally. worth. it. … Read more
Everybody’s geekin’ for the weekend, part two: Space (race)
With everyone in agreement that the two space-related destinations in central Oklahoma were worth going to, we set out from Fort Smith in the Martins’ vehicle to strike out westward. The kids were surprisingly well behaved for the whole trip; it occasionally got a bit noisy, but since the back set was filled with boys, that’s hardly a surprise.
Our first Saturday destination: the Stafford Air & Space Museum in Weatherford, Oklahoma! And then to the stars. Warning: there are over 50 photos after the jump. … Read more
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April Fools’ Games
April Fools’ Day was a Tuesday this year. It punked me by acting more like the mother of all Mondays, for a variety of reasons related to the upcoming job-getting. The one part of April Fools’ Day that didn’t feel like the joke was on me? Me and the boy going to Arkadia Retrocade, naturally!
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Fun and games and games and games and fun
So mom wants to rest, and the boy wants to play… and dad wouldn’t mind getting out of the house for a bit and blow stuff up. Sounds like this is a fever that calls out for less cowbell and more arcade.
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A nice warm day
You have no idea how much a nice warm day – and by “warm” I mean “65 degrees with a pretty good wind so we’re probably talking about 62 tops” – is welcome after several weeks of near-constant snow and ice. Since the beginning of the year one could be excused for thinking we’ve gone through more icing than a cake shop. Anyway, the cumulative effect of a relatively nice warm day was… happy faces.
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Have fun storming the arcade!
It’s almost Christmas, the boy is on break, I’m mentally fried from this new job that I have, and mom is in a mood to blow things up. To help keep mom within the confines of the law, and to assist her in the blowing up of things, we all piled into the vehiclemobile and set out to conquer a place we haven’t visited in far too long – Arkadia Retrocade!
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Happy rescue day, Obi Cat!
Seven years ago, this klutzy kitten wandered into the yard, and to the amazement of all involved, Xena didn’t chase him away.
Later that day, completely unrelated to the arrival of the cat, terrible things happened. We had a vacancy. Obi braved the skeptical black cat and stepped into the breach. … Read more
